"S-sorry."
To everyone's astonishment, Xie Qingchi, who had always been proud and unwilling to back down, lowered his haughty head.
In full view of everyone, he reached out, foolishly seeming to want to wipe the lingering moisture from the corners of Shen Shuangjian's eyes through the screen.
"No, I wasn't yelling at you..."
Xie Qingchi was utterly flustered. He rubbed his burning ears, all his anger, stubbornness, and pride vanishing in an instant.
"You left me on read and even blocked me. I just wanted to ask you about it."
As reason returned, Xie Qingchi finally remembered all the foolish things he had done that day.
First, he had run his mouth on Weibo, then connected to Shen Shuangjian during the livestream and started interrogating him without getting the facts straight.
Shen Shuangjian must have cried because he had upset him. So many people had criticized him just now; he must have felt wronged, yet Xie Qingchi had insisted on sulking at him.
Xie Qingchi had practically chosen to ignore Shen Shuangjian's answers. Not wanting to talk to him, not wanting to reply-he hadn't taken in a single word of it.
Shen Shuangjian's tears were far too precious. There had only been a few in all, and rather than falling onto the table to become damp marks and evaporate, every last one had landed squarely on Xie Qingchi's heart.
"Don't be angry... Can't I apologize?"
Xie Qingchi could only curse the fact that he had never comforted anyone in his life, leaving him utterly helpless when he actually needed to.
There was no set length for the livestream; it counted as completed once it reached half an hour.
Things had gone badly wrong on this end. Hearing that Xie Qingchi had made Shen Shuangjian cry, the others who were livestreaming together on the other end hurried to send connection requests as well.
But Shen Shuangjian's wrist hurt terribly. If he didn't rub in some medicinal liniment or use physical methods to reduce the swelling soon, tomorrow morning would likely be even harder to bear.
So Shen Shuangjian glanced at the time. Finding that he had already been online for more than thirty minutes, he ignored the connection requests that kept popping up and ended the livestream without the slightest hesitation.
Once the other party's livestream ended, their connection naturally cut off.
Staring at the phone screen, which now showed only his own stunned face, Xie Qingchi went blank, completely oblivious even to the wildly scrolling comments.
He's angry. He's really angry.
Those were practically the only words left in Xie Qingchi's mind. After a long moment, he abruptly came to his senses and reached out to end his own livestream.
He opened WeChat and tapped on the conversation whose nickname was a little frost-flower symbol.
The most recent message was still the new-friend notification WeChat had automatically sent after the friend request was accepted.
Xie Qingchi's heart pounded. His fingers flew across the screen, lines of text rapidly forming in the chat box.
Five minutes later, Xie Qingchi looked at the nearly five-hundred-character essay in the chat box. His finger hovered over the send button, but he hesitated, not daring to send it.
A moment later, he irritably deleted it all and started again.
Chi: [Um, I'm sorry.]
Chi: [I didn't mean to snap at you, and I wasn't trying to harass you. At first, I really just wanted to add you as a friend. I only called because you wouldn't accept, but then you blocked me, and I started saying things without thinking.]
Xie Qingchi stared intently at that little frost-flower symbol, as though the moment it changed to "typing," he would dare to make a voice call and explain.
Unfortunately, a long time passed, and his messages still sank like stones into the sea, unanswered.
Xie Qingchi frowned and irritably ruffled his hair again.
He thought Shen Shuangjian must still be angry.
After a moment's hesitation, Xie Qingchi bit his finger and tapped out another line. When he finally sent it after a long struggle, his heart was pounding so hard it almost leaped out of his chest.
Chi: [Actually, I quite like you too.]
The next second, WeChat automatically displayed a notification: You are not friends with this user yet. Please send a friend request first. You can chat once they accept your request.
Xie Qingchi: ?
The phone, which its owner had only recently picked up from the floor, was instantly hurled back into the corner. It hit the floor with a sharp crack and shattered.
Xie Qingchi cursed under his breath, veins bulging at his temples.
Fuck, Shen Shuangjian deleted me again. Again!!!
After deleting Xie Qingchi from WeChat, Shen Shuangjian went downstairs, hoping to find some ice in the sitting room refrigerator and try icing his wrist to ease the pain.
So much time had dragged by that it was past eight in the evening, an hour after which servants were never seen in the Shen Residence.
The antique wall lamps were not particularly bright. Their dim yellow light barely illuminated the vast living room, and for Shen Shuangjian, who had mild night blindness, it meant having to feel his way along slowly.
Unfortunately, the sitting room refrigerator contained pitifully little. Aside from a few expensive but useless drinks, there was almost nothing else.
Shen Shuangjian didn't know where ice was made in the Shen Residence, either. Lightly cradling his aching wrist, he closed the refrigerator and slowly straightened.
"What are you doing?"
The man's voice, carrying a trace of mild puzzlement, suddenly sounded behind him, startling a slight shudder out of Shen Shuangjian in the darkness.
Shen Shuangjian turned. In the dim light, he couldn't make out Shen Sixian's expression, only the vague outlines of his already sharply defined features and the tall, slender figure that even his casual loungewear couldn't conceal.
"Brother."
Shen Shuangjian might not have been able to see Shen Sixian clearly, but Shen Sixian, long accustomed to such dim surroundings over the years, could see Shen Shuangjian perfectly.
He casually set his glass of water on the nearby bookcase and pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses that had slipped slightly down his nose.
"What are you looking for this late?"
Shen Shuangjian had always considered himself someone who disliked troubling or relying on others.
Yet perhaps even he hadn't realized that, in ways he neither noticed nor understood, he had long enjoyed the world's gentle indulgence.
"Brother."
And so Shen Shuangjian called to him softly. "I'd like some ice."
Shen Shuangjian was entirely unaware that, compared with asking for three million to cover a contractual penalty, perhaps this utterly natural request was what truly imposed on Shen Sixian.
Beside the bookcase, in the quiet, dim light, Shen Sixian remained silent for more than three full seconds. Then he stirred and walked toward the island in the lounge area without a word.
A few minutes later, Shen Sixian returned with a full glass of ice and passed it to Shen Shuangjian.
"What do you need ice for?"
But before Shen Shuangjian could answer, he noticed the bluish-purple marks on the wrist of the hand Shen Shuangjian had extended.
"What happened to your hand?"
Shen Sixian immediately withdrew the hand holding out the ice. Under the warm yellow glow of the wall lamps, he took Shen Shuangjian's hand and lowered his eyes to examine it carefully.
Only upon looking closely did he discover that a fresh bruise had somehow appeared on the inside of that wrist, always as pale as snow, slender and delicate.